In the countryside and in cities

FPÖ scores points in vaccine-sceptical municipalities

(Bild: Klemens Groh)

Austrians' willingness to be vaccinated during the coronavirus pandemic three years ago still allows conclusions to be drawn about voting behavior in the respective municipalities. According to this, the FPÖ performed significantly better on Sunday in municipalities with a low willingness to vaccinate.

The fact that the FPÖ performs better in municipalities with a low willingness to vaccinate has already been shown in the Upper Austrian state election in 2021 and has been confirmed several times since then - including in the National Council election on Sunday, as Foresight found in an evaluation. Specifically, the FPÖ achieved four percentage points more in these municipalities than in the more "vaccine-friendly" regions.

Effect recognizable in both rural and urban areas
The figures in detail: Across Austria, the FPÖ took just under 29 percent of the vote on Sunday. The figure was significantly higher in rural communities with a low willingness to vaccinate (35%). In rural communities with a high willingness to vaccinate, on the other hand, the FPÖ "only" managed 31%. The picture is similar in urban areas: in cities with a low willingness to vaccinate, the FPÖ achieved 28.3 percent, while in those with a high vaccination rate it only achieved 24.7 percent.

These differences are not a matter of course, as the results of the ÖVP, Greens, NEOS, Bierpartei and KPÖ show. There is hardly any difference in the results between vaccination-sceptical and more vaccination-friendly municipalities. The decisive factor for the calculation was a vaccination coverage rate of 71.1% of the population for the first coronavirus vaccination in 2021. This value divides the municipalities into two roughly equal groups: if they are below this, the willingness to vaccinate was classified as rather low, above this as rather high.

SPÖ benefited from higher vaccination rate in rural areas 
However, the result for the SPÖ is interesting: although the willingness of the population to be vaccinated makes no difference in urban areas, it does in rural areas. Rural communities with a low vaccination rate only voted for the SPÖ by 15.2 percent, while rural communities with a high vaccination rate voted for the SPÖ by 19 percent.

Foresight also calculated other regional differences in voting behavior. As a general rule, the share of FPÖ and ÖVP voters tends to be higher in municipalities with low unemployment, lower incomes and higher levels of emigration. The SPÖ, Greens and NEOS tend to be stronger in immigrant communities and communities with higher incomes and higher unemployment. However, they are far from a majority here too.

Many votes for ÖVP and FPÖ in municipalities without public transport 
There are also clear differences in terms of transport infrastructure: in municipalities with good to excellent public transport connections, the SPÖ is just about the strongest party with 25 percent. Here, however, the weight of the federal capital Vienna is particularly large. In municipalities without public transport, on the other hand, the FPÖ achieves over 36% and the ÖVP just under 34%.